This invention relates to a log feeder for a canting machine.
In the sawing of logs to make lumber the first operation is to slab off opposite sides of a log to make a cant with at least two parallel faces. The cant is then sawed into boards of the desired dimensions. In the past, the slabbing operation was done by saws, the slabs either being burned as waste material or transported to a chipper to make usable chips in a separate operation.
More recently, chippers have been used to perform the slabbing operation, thereby minimizing waste and avoiding handling and transportation of the sawed slabs containing outer portions of the log which are not suitable for lumber. Then, as the supply of relatively straight and true logs became exhausted, difficulties were encountered in feeding logs with irregularities such as knots, flared ends, burls, bends and twists. It is difficult to stabilize such logs in their passage through the chipper.
Various infeed arrangements have been proposed heretofore to overcome these difficulties, such as V-troughs in which feed chains have been mounted, chains having spaced chairs or saddles, paired belts which form the sides of a rectangular trough, conveyer chains similarly arranged with attachments to grip the log, top and bottom chains and rolls having pointed studs. These arrangements however, have not provided an adequate solution to the problem.
Objects of the present invention are, therefore, to provide an improved canting machine, to provide a log slabbing chipper with separate infeed and outfeed means, to provide improved infeed and outfeed means, to provide infeed means which will more satisfactorily stabilize irregular logs, and to provide an infeed mechanism which is readily adjustable to the length of the log for treating logs of different length.